Hungry TV: making Traditional Chinese type
Archive | Originally published 2022-03-07. Ages, crowdfunding progress and current affairs are retained as reported at the time. Please refer to the product pages for current availability and licensing.
Some say that written language has lost ground to images, and can no longer deliver the same force it once did.
Others argue that as long as people exist, words will remain.
Letters are present in places we notice and places we overlook: on a sign, a leaflet, a road marker or a packet of tissues. They enter everyday life quietly. ‘They do not appear from nowhere. Every letterform you see has been designed. You may not know its name, but you can recognise that the styles differ,’ Roy Chan said.
The designer of Reborn had begun sharing display lettering on social media two years earlier. By applying it to different products, he hoped to help people recognise that Traditional Chinese type design also existed in Hong Kong.
At the start of 2022, he launched a crowdfunding campaign for a typeface planned to contain 4,900 common display characters and 400 colloquial forms. He wanted the project to draw attention to Traditional Chinese typography. In the interview, he expressed concern that fonts used locally did not always follow the forms Hong Kong readers were accustomed to.
Developing a large Traditional Chinese character set is a substantial undertaking that can take years. The article also described a difficult commercial environment, with limited specialist provision and a long-established culture of unlicensed downloads making paid development harder to sustain.
What future did Traditional Chinese type have in Hong Kong, and what kept its makers working?
‘Continuing our own culture and local practices is a basic thing; it does not need a special reason. While we can still make Traditional Chinese fonts, we should do what we can. You never know how much the work you do now may help this place in the future. I do not want people to appreciate it only after it is gone,’ Roy said.
